[Pharo-users] A "with" construct like Pascal - easy to do, but is it terrible?

[Tim Mackinnon]

I’ve noticed that as we’ve progressed there has been a move to more concise and 
fluid code - e.g. I quite like the new String streaming stuff

e.g. 

^ String
                streamContents: [ :stream | 
                        stream nextPut: …. ]


So I was wondering why we don’t have a construct like Pascals with  to avoid 
Book1.title, Book1.author etc.

(* book 1 specification *)
With Book1 do
begin
   title  := 'C Programming';
   author := 'Nuha Ali '; 
   subject := 'C Programming Tutorial';
   book_id := 6495407;
end;

I often find it a bit tedious with code like the following which then needs an 
instvar...

self classes do: [ :class |
        | metaclass |
        metaclass := class metaclass.
        metaclass xxxx.
        mataclass yyyy.
]


I’m wondering why we don’t have #with:do:  

        class with: class metaclass do: [:metaclass |
                metaclass xxx.
        ]


But when such things aren’t there - there is usually a good reason and I’m 
curious … this said, there are all kinds of other such tricks (which I rarely 
use that I keep coming across).

Tim